Rob Andrews

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman and look forward to working with him and I thank him for his leadership.

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Riley).

Mr. ANDREWS. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to strike the last word.

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I oppose the amendment.

Mr. ANDREWS. Reclaiming my time, it would though, if I am correct, prohibit the transfer of any funds from one account to another for this purpose; is that correct?

Mr. ANDREWS. Reclaiming my time, he would have to ignore the will that we enacted here in the bill? With all due respect, I think that proves my point, that it puts the President in an untenable situation where our failure to act to enact the supplemental, which happens around here a lot, would tie the President's hands and create, I think, an irresponsible situation. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding me this time. I want to thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence), and the ranking member, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and all our colleagues on the committee for bringing this bill to the floor. I support it. I support it because it supports the men and women who wear the uniform of this country with such pride. I do not believe I have ever seen that strength more on display than I did a few weeks ago when I visited Fort Dix, which is in the District of my friend and neighbor the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), to visit with the ethnic Albanian refugees who had come to this country from the horror they had faced the in the Balkans. On the first night that they were in that camp, a little girl about the same age as my oldest daughter, who is 6, saw an American soldier walking toward her. Her reaction was to scream, to turn around and run as fast as she could in the other direction, telling her mother and father and sisters and brothers that they had to run away because the soldiers were coming. It is understandable why she would have had that reaction, given where she grew up. Her mother went over to her and comforted her and said that she did not have to run away; that here soldiers were different; that this was a different place; that soldiers could be trusted. And she reacted in a way that many of us would want to react in expressing support for people wearing a uniform. She ran in the other direction, she jumped up in the arms of that American soldier and hugged him around the neck as fiercely as she could. Our people are strong not only because of the strength of the weapons that we give them, of the training that they achieve, but they are strong because of the strength of their character. The best way that we can show our respect for that strength is to raise their pay, and this bill does that; it is to respect their retirement, and this bill does that; it is to provide better living conditions for their families, and this bill does that; and, finally, it is to give them the finest training and the finest weaponry, and this bill does that. Mr. Chairman, I am proud to support it.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose this amendment. No one can deny that there is a serious breach of U.S. security with respect to the leak of military secrets to the People's Republic of China. The answer in my view to address that problem is to plug the leaks, punish the violators, prevent this from happening again, and to outsmart the technology which the Chinese have wrongfully obtained. The answer is not to change our form of government and replace one Secretary of Defense and one Commander in Chief with 435 Secretaries of Defense or Commanders in Chief. I believe that is the fundamental error behind this ill-conceived amendment. I would like my colleagues to consider the following not-too-unlikely scenario: A rogue state, let us say Iraq, decides it wants to plan and execute an attack on a U.S. corporation located in Beijing, in the People's Republic of China. Our intelligence community learns of this planned attack. If the DeLay amendment were the law, as I read it, the Secretary of Defense and the military would be prohibited from talking to the People's Republic of China military about responding to prevent that attack, prevented from sharing any information as to what to do about it. The principal flaw in this very flawed proposal is not simply what I believe to be its political motivation, it is also its absolute unreasonableness in implementation. People have to make decisions in times of crises with limited information and with peoples' lives on the line. It is wholely inappropriate for us to require that those decisions be bound up in the deliberations of a legislative branch. There is not one Member here, certainly not I, that would say that the conduct of the Chinese military is exemplary. But history teaches us that there are times when we cannot choose our partners or our allies. There are times when we must act and seek the help of anyone who is willing and prepared to help us. I agree that those circumstances would be very limited, indeed, given the history of the last few years and months and weeks on this issue. But for us to rule it out with the exception of search and rescue exercises or humanitarian exercises, whatever that means, I believe is imprudent and reckless, and is an abrogation of the rightful constitutional power of the executive branch. For these reasons, I would urge my colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, to reject this ill-conceived amendment.

Mr. ANDREWS. I thank my friend from California for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, this is a question of constitutional rights. When someone puts on the uniform of the United States military, she should not forfeit her constitutional rights. If a different constitutional right were at stake here, I suspect that the attitude of those who oppose this amendment would be very different. They may not like the fact that the Constitution guarantees the right to choose, but it does. If we had a policy that said that you could not freely exercise religion at your own expense on military property in foreign countries, people would object vociferously to that because they would understand that there was something fundamentally wrong to denying people in the military their constitutional rights. You may not like this constitutional right. You are free to try to change it. But it is a constitutional right. And to deny it to women who serve in uniform is just wrong. The Sanchez amendment corrects that wrong. I would urge everyone to support it strongly as I do.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from New Jersey for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I did want to speak tonight about the efforts of the members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce to bring to this floor a vote on our ideas of how managed care health insurance companies can be made more responsible and accountable to people. If we travel the country and listen to people of every neighborhood, every region, every economic group, every racial and religious background, there is one common refrain. That is that the managed care industry is out of control. The stories are legion. It is the story of the person who cannot get a referral to a specialist, a cardiologist or neurologist or an audiologist; stories about people whose children need another 6 weeks of speech therapy, but cannot get an extension under the contract because the managed care company will not interpret the contract that way. It is about people who travel out of town and find out that their out of town health benefits are meaningless because you basically have to travel back to wherever you came from for anything short of a dire emergency room problem. It is a matter of people going to emergency rooms and being treated for very serious problems, like collapses or chest pains, and then being told weeks or months later that it was not really an emergency, that they have to pay the bill themselves. It is about people being referred to specialists who may not be appropriate for the care that they need for mental health services or for other kinds of services. There are stories of women being discharged from hospitals 30 hours after giving birth by C-section, people being discharged from hospitals 30 hours after having hip replacement operations. We are not making these stories up. I have heard them myself from people in my district in New Jersey. Now, how is this, that in this country an industry could become so autocratic and so unresponsive to consumers? I think the reason is that in our economy, there are three ways that institutional behavior is controlled. There is regulation, there is competition, and there is litigation. Regulation is obviously a set of rules that tells people and institutions and corporations what they can and cannot do. It applies to supermarkets, it applies to airlines, it applies to homebuilders, it applies to just about everything in American society. Under present law, regulations like those in my State, in our State of New Jersey, that say you have to give a woman at least 72 hours after she has given birth by C-section, do not apply to most Americans because they are covered by a Federal law called ERISA, the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, that wipes out the effect of those State laws. So most people are not protected by regulation in their health insurance plan. Then there is a matter of competition. If you do not like the Big Mack, you can buy a sandwich from Wendy's, Burger King, or one of the other chains. It does not work that way in health insurance. In most markets in metropolitan areas around the country, one or sometimes two major managed care plans control 75 percent or 80 percent of the people who live in an area. In the Philadelphia area in which I live, two plans cover about 85 out of every 100 people. When there is that much domination of the market by that few people, there is no meaningful competition. If you do not like what one plan is doing, you really do not have a meaningful choice to go to someone else, which leads you to litigation. If you do not like what someone is doing, you sue them. I understand that some people feel that lawsuits have gotten out of control. Perhaps some of them have. But if you mow lawns for a living or build houses for a living or sell groceries for a living or paint houses for a living, if you do something wrong, you can be held accountable in a court of law. If you hire someone to paint your house and they do a lousy job and your shutters fall off, you can sue them for all the damage they cause you as a result of their incompetence. But if an insurance company insures the health of your daughter and they deny her the right to see a specialist, and she gets very sick as a result of it, you cannot sue the insurance company because they are protected by this 1974 Federal law called ERISA that we are talking about. The only two businesses in America that are effectively immune from responsibility in a court of law are managed care plans and nuclear power plants. Everyone else is held accountable in a court of law, and we believe, I believe the majority of us in this Chamber believe, that that should stop in the case of managed care companies. They should be held accountable the same way everyone else in American society is for their decisions. That is the heart of the real Patients' Bill of Rights that was introduced by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the senior member of the House of Representatives, and cosponsored by many of us at the beginning of this session. We are not so fixated in our beliefs that we believe that we are a thousand percent right and no one else can disagree with us. I think we are right. I think the Dingell bill should be enacted. President Clinton has said he would sign it. I think it would be good for the American people because it would for the first time hold the managed care companies accountable in the same way that everyone else is held accountable. But the majority here is not content to just say they disagree with us. The majority will not even let it come to a vote. So we can vote on naming Post Offices; we can vote on what should happen in Kosovo, as we should; we can vote on what we ought to do to regulate pharmaceutical products or to regulate the Y2K problem; we can vote on nuclear policy with the Peoples' Republic of China, all of which we should be talking about and doing. But for some reason, we cannot vote on this. We cannot bring this idea to the floor and let those of us who believe it is the right thing vote yes and those who disagree with us try to amend what we say or vote no. There has been no meaningful movement of this legislation to the floor. As a result of that, on Wednesday many of my Democratic colleagues, and I hope some Republican colleagues, will join us in signing a petition that forces this bill to the floor so we can have our day in court, we can have our debate, we can either win or lose. There is some other action on this which the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) made some reference to. There is an attempt by majority members of the committee on the Committee on Education and the Workforce to break up the Patients' Bill of Rights into little pieces and have us consider a little piece at a time. My subcommittee, which is the Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations of the Committee on Education and the Workforce will begin that process next week. I am glad we are starting the process, but I would say this, if we are going to start it, let us really do it right and let us finish it. Tomorrow at 10 o'clock members of our committee will be making an announcement. It is a strategy that we have to try to compel the Committee on Education and the Workforce to consider all of the issues on this; not just little pieces of it, not just the icing but the cake as well as the icing; to really talk about the central issues that are involved. So I would say to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), I am looking forward to joining with the gentleman, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and scores of our colleagues, I hope 218 of our colleagues, a majority, in marching to that podium next Wednesday to sign a petition that would force this issue to come to the floor. In the meantime, the members of our subcommittee, which I am privileged to lead from the Democratic side, will be doing whatever we can to use all the rules at our disposal to compel a vote, first in our committee and then on this floor, on this very, very important issue. I can certainly accept the fact that there will be those who disagree with us that the health insurance industry should be held to the same standard that everyone else in America is held to. That is not a universally-held view. But I would challenge, Mr. Speaker, those who disagree with our view to let us have our day in court. Let us bring our bill to the floor. If Members disagree with our bill, try to amend it. If Members believe it cannot be amended, then vote against it. But do not deny the will of the people of the country, and I believe the will of the majority of Members of this Chamber, when push comes to shove, to enact a law which is a real Patients' Bill of Rights which says to the health insurance industry that you are an important part of our economy, we value what you do, we encourage your continued development, but we do not hold you open to special treatment. We do not exempt you from responsibility for the decisions that you make and the wrongs that you sometimes cause as a result of your decisions. I assure the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) that the Democratic Members, and I hope we will be joined by Members of conscience from the other side of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, that we are going to knock on every door, pursue every road, and use every rule at our command so that the will of the majority can be done.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No.'s 167, 168, and 169, I was unavoidably detained and unable to cast my vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on all three of these votes.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the underlying amendments and the underlying bill as well. I thank and congratulate the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence), the chairman, and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member, and in particular my colleagues the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for their efforts in this behalf. At a time of multiplying chaos in the world, this bill gives us a measure of certainty. The sources of chaos are technological as new weapons systems and new instruments of terrorism proliferate every day. The sources of chaos are political as new states are imposed upon ancient religious and ethnic rivalries. The only thing that is certain in our political evaluation is that there will be more chaos in the years to come. The certainty that is behind this bill is that we are making a decision for certain as a Congress that it will be the policy of this country to deploy and defend ourselves in the very best way we can with a national missile defense system. The arguments against this bill are diplomatic, economic and strategic. I find each of the arguments lacking. The diplomatic argument against this bill is that it will somehow destabilize the world. I think the greatest source of destabilization is the risks that an accidental or rogue launch could plunge the nuclear powers of the world into an irreversible course of mutual destruction. I think a viable defense system is an instrument of stability, not instability. For those who raise economic objections to this bill, yes, it is expensive. Yes, every dollar of taxpayers' money that we spend must be spent carefully, but it is important to understand the narrow scope of the expenditure that is before us. In this year's budget, for example, about one nickel out of every $100 that we spend as a government will be dedicated to this purpose. One nickel out of every $100 is, in my judgment, a prudent and sound investment for the defense of the country. For those who raise strategic objections, I would simply say that every strategic instrument that is possible to be at our disposal should be so. Will this succeed today technologically? Of course not, but we cannot succeed technologically, we cannot reach the goal technologically until we have the goal. When President Kennedy in the early sixties said we would get to the Moon as the first country in the world that would do so, it was impossible technologically at that time, but because he set that goal and we followed it as a country we set in means the creative resources of the country and we did achieve it. I believe the same thing will and can happen here. It is for those reasons that I would urge both Republican and Democratic colleagues to support this piece of legislation.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, having the power to do something does not mean it is the right thing to do. I have very little doubt that we have the constitutional power to tell the President he may not consider the option of ground troops, but I have even less doubt that that is the wrong thing to do for us in these circumstances. Decisions that are about life and death are not decisions that lend themselves to decision-making by a committee. As young Americans are put in the line of fire as we speak, the idea that 435 people, each with a separate point of view, each with a separate analysis, is somehow going to weigh into a process that is ongoing, communicate a message to a foreign enemy and make a right decision on behalf of those people in uniform, is to me preposterous. As someone who speaks with some grave doubt about the initiation of this mission, I have no doubt about its morality, and I have no doubt about the impropriety of the resolution that is before us. We should each of us, Republican and Democrat, oppose it.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, as we approach National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week, April 18-24, I rise today to recognize the American Society of Transplantation, an organization comprised of 1,400 transplant physicians, surgeons, and scientists actively engaged in the research and practice of transplantation medicine and immunobiology and represents the majority of professionals in the field of transplantation in the United States. AST members play a critical role in the management of transplant patients from the onset of end-stage disease to post-transplantation are involved in basic research that translates from ``bench to bedside,'' improving the care of transplant patients. The 1999 National Donor Recognition Ceremony, sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), will kick-off the week's activities that will be promoting organ and tissue donation and celebrating donors. AST's President, John F. Neylan, MD will be a speaker at this event along with U.S. Surgeon General, David Satcher, MD, PhD. Similar events will be taking place around the country next week. Organ procurement agencies, transplant centers and transplant- related organizations across the nation will sponsor activities with a donation theme ranging from health fairs to sporting events. Donor memorial services and transplant recipient reunions will take place to celebrate and recognize those individuals who have given the ultimate gift . . . ``the Gift of Life.'' As a strong supporter of medical research, I commend the AST, headquartered in my district, for their dedication and commitment to research, education, advocacy and patient care in transplantation science and medicine. These dedicated physicians are integral members of the ``transplant team'' and in many cases, are the directors of their transplant program. Through the work of AST, the transfer of information to the transplant clinics from basic science laboratories will lead to new scientific advances and improvements in patient care. Next month, AST will be holding their 18th Annual Scientific Meeting which will attract an international attendance to the city of Chicago and will feature the cutting edge science that is opening new frontiers in transplantation medicine and immunobiology. AST members assist in providing the ``Gift of Life'' and I commend them for their contributions to our society's health care.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. I thank the ranking member for yielding this time to me, Mr. Speaker. I rise in strong support of the resolution. I speak as someone who has some grave doubts about the underlying policy but no doubt at all about my admiration and respect for the men and women in uniform who represent us so ably tonight. Our hearts and our prayers are with them, and our hearts are also with those who sit at home with their hearts in their throats waiting for the phone to ring with news about what has happened to their loved ones. It is our prayer that when that phone rings in houses and apartments all over America and around the world that the news will be good and the voice will be the voice of their father, or their mother, or their brother, or their sister, or their son and their daughter saying: I am safe, I am well, and I am coming home soon. Mr. Speaker, I would also hope that Members would do more than just come to the floor on days like this when we commend the efforts of our troops, but they would also come to the floor on days when we decide how much to pay our troops, come to the floor and support our efforts when we decide the quality of life for their families in bases around the world, would come to the floor and support the efforts that will give them the safest planes and the most accurate missiles and the most sure defense systems as well. Honoring our troops is not simply something we should do in times of grave national crisis; it is something that we should do every week and every day and every month with every dollar that we commit to their well-being and their safety. I am pleased to join with colleagues from all around the country on both sides of the aisle in sending our prayer of support, but adding an admonition that we stand by our people not just tonight, but in the weeks and months to come.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, there is no Member of this House who has done more to promote the rights of fairness to the minority than the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley) and I commend him and thank him for that, but on this issue on this day I respectfully part company with him. I think this rule strikes the appropriate balance in the tension between the powers of the President as Commander in Chief and our powers and duties to set broad policy for this country. I think it would be a terrible mistake for us to micromanage a serious military strategy issue like this, and I believe that an open rule in this sort of circumstance would invite that kind of micromanagement. I also believe that it would be an equally serious mistake for us to abrogate our responsibility and not take a position as to where our country should go in this issue. The process that begins with this legislation on this day gives us that opportunity beginning with our opportunity to offer a motion to recommit today, but, more importantly, after today, after today when decisions about how to deploy, what to deploy, when to deploy, under what circumstances to deploy will be debated and worked out in the actions of the House Committee on Armed Services, in its bills that come to this floor over the next several years and probably decades. I certainly understand and revere the rights of the minority, but in this case I believe that the essential constitutional balance prevails, and that balance calls for us to set broad policy, which we will do in this bill by casting our vote and for the President, as our Commander in Chief, to execute that policy as he or some day she sees fit. I support the rule as I will support the bill in the debate hereafter.

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to congratulate the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) for their bipartisan and tireless effort to bring this legislation to the floor and thank our committee leadership, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), for giving us this opportunity. The Constitution says that one of our foremost responsibilities is to provide for the common defense. I do not think there is a Member here who does not hold in his or her heart that responsibility very highly. But there will be those who argue that this is not the right way to provide for the common defense. I respectfully submit that they are wrong. This is the right way to provide for the common defense. Some say that the risk is not there or we are exaggerating it. I believe that our best judgment from our best intelligence compels us to conclude otherwise. Some say the technology will not work yet. They are right. But the technology for virtually every major weapons system did not work in the early stages. The technology for our space program did not work in the early stages. The technology of corporate America rarely works in the early stages. Technology never works if you do not try. This is about trying to make this technology work. Others will say that other priorities should take precedence over this provision for the common defense. There are other important priorities. There is no priority more important than defending this country from attack. Because nothing else we do is possible if we fail to defend the country from attack. And how much are we asking to invest in this? Over the next 5 years, we will spend about $10 trillion of the taxpayers' money to develop this country on education, health care, transportation, all the other things that we do. This program will spend about one-tenth of 1 percent of that amount of money. The other 99.9 percent will be otherwise spent. This is a wise choice. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate a great day, on which I was fortunate to learn from some of our wisest teachers: kindergarten students. On March 1, 1999, I had the opportunity to read to kindergarteners at the Shady Lane Elementary School in Deptford, New Jersey. Ms. Martha Wilson's Kindergarten class is an outstanding group of young people. I was delighted to help promote reading to young children, and I greatly enjoyed the chance to meet the students in Ms. Wilson's class. I wish the best of luck to the following kindergarteners who shared this special day with me at the Shady Lane School: Courtney Callahan, Nicholas Battee, Jaimie Beekler, Destiny Bingham, Brian Buck, John Childress, Robert Kilcourse, Kody McMichael, Marisa Peters, Matthew Raively, Deborah Robinson, Karen Sabater, Donald Smith, Richard Smith, Marcus Smith, Ayana Thomas, Jessica Welch, George Williams, and Nylan Wolcott.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Missouri, our distinguished ranking member, for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of a good idea that makes common sense, and I commend its authors, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) for their excellent effort in this regard. I do believe there is a growing national consensus that it makes sense to give local educational decision makers more flexibility to do what they think works in their community with Federal money. That is the essential principle of this idea, and it is why we should pass the bill. I will later today support the amendment of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) and the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) for the kind of high standards that the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) just spoke about. But I am pleased to be part of a growing national consensus in favor of public education. I do not want us, though, today in our justifiable pride in enacting this bill to overlook other aspects of a growing national consensus for public education as well. There are 2 million 3 and 4-year-old children in our country who do not have adequate access to prekindergarten education, and I believe there is a growing national consensus that this Congress has a role to step up to the plate and to help those children and those families. In my State of New Jersey there are 50 schools in operation today that are more than 100 years old, and there are 1,000 schools in operation today that are more than 50 years old. I believe there is a growing national consensus that we should step up to the plate in this Congress and address that problem of inadequate public school facilities. President Clinton, last year, I believe, reflected a growing national consensus when he called for the recruitment of 100,000 new teachers to reduce class sizes in the primary grades. Last year we made a downpayment on that, but I believe there is a growing national consensus that we finish the job in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act this year. This is a good idea, but let us understand the limitations of this idea today. It will permit many school districts to have more flexibility with the 3 or 4 or 5 percent of their budget that comes from Washington. It will not build any new schools; it will not open up any large scope of prekindergarten programs; and it will not take the steps to reducing class sizes that I believe our consensus reflects. Ed-Flex is a powerful but limited good idea. It should be improved on the floor today, and I believe it should be enacted, but it should not be used by this majority as an excuse to ignore the other more powerful ideas that are needed in public education; better prekindergarten options, better facilities and smaller class sizes. Let us get to work on those.

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by my friend and colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Holt). I agree with my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), that there is a shared intent here to protect and foster math and science education. I believe respectfully, however, that Mr. Holt's approach is the right way and better way to do that. Mr. Holt acknowledges, as I believe we all do, that the only major Federal initiative for math and science education teaching is the Eisenhower program. Its requirements have never been more needed than they are today, and those requirements should be waived only under extraordinary circumstances. I have sat in my district office and listened to dozens of employers talk about their grave need for students who are properly trained in math and science. If there ever was a time when we needed to reassert that national need, it is now. Mr. Chairman, I believe that the author of the underlying amendment, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) understands that probably better than anyone in this body and certainly better than I do. I would just respectfully say this on behalf of the Holt amendment: The Holt amendment does not say that we cannot do things with Eisenhower money that are different than what have been done under the regular statutory formula. The Holt amendment says that before we do, we have to explain very clearly what other steps the local education authority is taking to assure high quality math and science education. Now the second point about the Holt amendment that I think is the critical one is who gets to evaluate whether or not the local education agency is doing what needs to be done for math and science education. The underlying amendment by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) would leave that judgment to the state educational policymakers, and in the case of New Jersey, to the New Jersey Department of Education. I have great respect and admiration for people in those state departments, but frankly they are the ones who are applying for the waiver in the first place, and if we are asking the people who are applying for the waiver whether they are doing enough to support math and science education, I would be shocked if their answer were ever anything but ``Of course we are.'' There needs to be an independent review, in this case a review by the Federal Secretary of Education, to make an independent determination that the local education agency is doing what it ought to be doing for science and math education. So I believe we have agreement.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Kildee-Miller amendment and I rise as a supporter of the underlying bill because I believe that the Kildee-Miller amendment significantly strengthens the underlying bill. The underlying bill here is one in which we say to States and localities that if they truly believe that they have a more creative and powerful way to achieve the goals set forth in various Federal education initiatives, then try them; if they can do better than the orthodox way of doing things, then we applaud them and support them. Implicit in that proposition is a measurement of whether the States and localities are, in fact, doing better by trying the flexible approach. I know that the words are in this bill that would measure whether the States and localities are doing better, but as the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) said earlier today, educational bureaucrats in particular are masters at spinning words about what they are doing. They are not always so good about providing measurements. I would submit that it would be technically within the definition of a meaningful evaluation under the statute if the chief school officer of a State submitted the following annual report about his or her waiver schools: We have spoken to every teacher in every school district and assessed their evaluation of the success of our waiver program. Each of those teachers has reported to us that each of their students is doing better than they were before in reading, language, arts and math. That is a specific measurable evaluation of how well the schools are doing. It is also utterly worthless, because it does not measure. It makes four mistakes. It permits words rather than numbers. We need measurable, quantitative measures to figure out whether students are doing better under the waivers. It permits us to talk about States and not localities within those States. An aggregate State average may well show improvement but it would mask continuing deficiencies in districts with special challenges and communities with special needs. It permits States to talk about groups of students without disaggregating or breaking out particular subcategories of students who have particular barriers of discrimination, of poverty of other reasons that they may not perform as well their peers. Finally, it lets States report on process rather than result. We had 64 seminars last year; we sent out 321 bulletins; we had 5,422 meetings. That is all data. It is performance data. It can be characterized as that, but it tells us nothing about whether these students are performing better than they were under the regular orthodox programs. The gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) are putting the school districts to the test and saying if they think they can do better, we will give them that opportunity with our money, with Federal money, but prove it; prove that they are doing better. Give us numbers, not words. Break it down by school districts, not in the aggregate State level. Tell us about groups of students, African American students, poor students, Hispanic students, female students, others that may have particular problems. It requires States to talk about results, not processes. If we are investing in a company and the chief financial officer of the company says we had a great year, we had six meetings of the board of directors, we added 12,000 new employees, we had a lot of new work on our employee manual this year, but does not tell us how much money they made, what their sales were, we would not invest in that company. This Ed-Flex bill, without the Miller-Kildee amendment, is an invitation for educational bureaucrats to blather us to death. The Miller amendment says put your results where the money is. It will strengthen the Ed-Flex concept. It should be adopted because it demands those at the local level to give their very best to the children who depend on them. This is a good bill that could be made much better with the adoption of the Miller-Kildee amendment. I urge both Republican and Democratic supporters of the bill to support this amendment as well.